National GOP Chiefs Cut All Ties With Ex-Klansman Duke
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WASHINGTON — The national Republican Party leadership, spurred by chairman Lee Atwater, today cut all ties to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, the newly elected Louisiana Republican state lawmaker.
Party spokeswoman Leslie Goodman said 28 voting members of the party’s executive committee unanimously repudiated during a telephone vote Duke’s racist and anti-Semitic views and barred financial or other assistance for him.
Duke, 38, a former klan grand wizard, was elected to the Legislature Saturday from a suburban New Orleans district in a narrow victory over builder John Treen, 63, who was backed by President Bush and former President Ronald Reagan.
The resolution adopted by the national Republicans in effect “excommunicates” Duke, according to Atwater, who said Duke is neither a Republican nor a Democrat but “a charlatan and a faker” using Republicans to promote his racist agenda.
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